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1947-2014 (Archived)

The pronunciation of "th" can be a problem. So it is pronounced like the "th" in the word "thought" only a little more softly - maybe even more like "t" with a lisp. Press your tongue behind your 2 front teeth when you say "th" :yes:

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Sawa lakh se EK larraoan

MentorWriterSPNerContributor

and in English..everyone is either grandad..granny..auntie..or uncle !!
The Chinese even have finer..vocabulary...they have Words for First sister..Second Brother etc...youngest sister..youngest brother etc..Firts cousin..second cousin etc etc...even more DETAIL than the Punjabis...

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1947-2014 (Archived)

Thanks for the pronunciation/spelling for Saandhu. The pronunciation of Punjabi was actually a request by a forum member. So when posting in this forum section I like it when we can also include some of the finer points of pronunciation.

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1947-2014 (Archived)

This article is really interesting for a number of reasons. It gives the historical and cultural background for Punjabi kinship terms. The perspective of the writer is also interesting -- as Ego.

Punjabi Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent. The most important descent/kinship groups in Punjab, in order of comprehensiveness, are caste ( jati ), clan ( got ), village ( pind ), division ( patti ), and family ( parivar ). In Punjab a caste is described as a group of families in an area, with common ancestry, who marry among themselves and have a common traditional occupation based upon a common type of inherited productive property.

Castes generally have origin stories that explain how they came into the area and/or into their present occupational position. Lower castes are described either as original landholders who were defeated and subordinated by later invaders (who became the present landholders), or alternatively as latecomers who were given their present occupation by the landholders in exchange for being allowed to settle. Higher castes are described as successful invaders or as a group given the land of an area by some past ruler for notable services.

In villages, castes commonly fall into higher and lower groups. Traditionally, members of the lower caste would have been considered unclean by the upper, and they might have been denied house sites and access to public wells on the upper-caste side of the village, and they also might have had to use different ritual specialists for marriages and other Lifecycle rituals. Exactly which castes are put in each group varies by area, but the upper castes usually are Brahmans, landowners, and skilled artisans, while the lower groups do work such as handling dead animals and sweeping up offal. Landowning castes include Jats, Rajputs, Sainis, Kambohs, Brahmans, Gujars, and Ahirs. The term "Rajput" literally means "son of a king," but most of the other names are purely ethnic in connotation. There is no caste group literally named "landowner" or farmer. Artisan castes include carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, barbers, operators of cotton gins, and perhaps weavers. The lower group contains leatherworkers and sweepers. People often do not actually perform the work their caste name suggests. Leatherworkers, for example, are a numerous group who usually do agricultural labor. People of lower castes often use different caste names according to religion; for example, a Mazhbi is a leatherworker who is a Sikh.

In Punjab, caste discrimination is not generally supported by religion. It is specifically rejected in all forms of Islam and Sikhism. Many local Hindu sects and movements, such as Radhoswami, reject it as well. Each jati is divided into an indefinite number of clans (got). A got is a group descended from a common ancestor, not specifically known, whose members are more closely related to each other than to other members of the caste. Gots are exogamous; one must not marry a person from the gots of any of one's four grandparents. People commonly use the name of their got as part of their personal name.

Villages are also exogamous, and people of one's village are addressed with kinship terms as though they were people of one's own family, irrespective of caste or got. A patti—literally, a division—is the largest group of families with actual common ancestry within a caste or got in a single village. A family (parivar) is the basic and most important unit of Punjab society. The complementary roles of men and women in the household division of labor are based upon complementary rights and duties in terms of the kinship system, particularly complementary rights over property (see below).

Kinship Terminology. The Punjabi kinship terminology distinguishes just four superior generations and four inferior generations, but there is no limit to the relationships that may be considered collateral.

In Ego's own generation, all males are addressed as bhai (brother) and all females are bhain (sister). These terms include all of those who would be called "cousin" in English, and many more. In the first ascending generation, the terminology distinguishes mother, mother's brother, and mother's sister, and each of their respective spouses, all of which are further distinguished from father, father's elder brother, Father's younger brother, and father's sister and their respective spouses. From an English speaker's point of view, Punjabi thus demarcates ten distinct relations where English has only "uncle" and "aunt." But the offspring of these relations are all either "brother" or "sister," according to sex.

The terms above +1 continue to separate the matrilateral and patrilateral sides: all the terms of the mother's side are built up on the stem -nan-. On the father's side the stem is -dad-. Prefixes and suffixes distinguish generation and sex only. Thus the father of the father is dada, mother of father is dadi. Dada also applies to any male relative through the dada or dadi, and dadi to any female through the dada or dadi. Thus dada is "grandfather," "great-uncle," and indeed all of their siblings, spouses, or siblings of spouses or spouses of Siblings of whatever remoteness. Nana and nani are those similarly related on the mother's side. Father of dada is pardada, his wife/sister is parnani, and these terms too are similarly extended. Their counterparts on the mother's side are parnana and parnani. The father or mother of parnana or parnani has no term (i.e., is not a relative). The term-pair superior to parnana-parnani on the father's side in turn is nakarnana-nakarnani. Above this no further relations are recognized on the father's side.

The system of terms for relatives below the generation of Ego is more complex. Each position is distinguished by generation, sex, and whether the person was brought into the Family by birth or marriage. Further, lines of descent through males only are separated from those through females; Beginning with distinguishing Ego's own sons and daughters from those of Ego's sister's on the one hand and Ego's brother's on the other. The line of direct descendants that remains with a man in his village is also separated out from all others. The terminology for men is the same as for women. In address, only terms for one's own and superior generations are used. Genealogical inferiors are addressed by name.

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1947-2014 (Archived)

The pronunciation of "th" can be a problem. So it is pronounced like the "th" in the word "thought" only a little more softly - maybe even more like "t" with a lisp. Press your tongue behind your 2 front teeth when you say "th"

This is what I was getting at.

Sometimes a "t" makes a "t" sound and other times not. Tenka is "t" t ; and ttatta is a soft "t" ਤ. And thaththa ਠis the soft "th"-- or am I wrong? Anyway the assistant granththi said I am saying it right . Ignore those line under the letters as I can't take them out. Or is this a test?

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Sawa lakh se EK larraoan

MentorWriterSPNerContributor

THakur..is the THatthha ( letter after Tainka) Line 4 of alphabet..as in PiTH..(Back)

THree..is the Thathha..letter after the "t: Line 5 of alphabet...as in PaTHar (stone)

SO ENGLISH alphabet really is NOT Helpful in PUNJABI at all...after all ENGLISH cant even take care of its OWN...as we know..."Know" is NOh...and Knife is Nife...Bough is not same as Rough...Tough..Cough !!....and hundreds of similar words..so what chance of it saying/writing Punjabi wright..ha ha RIGHT !!tight..sight..fight..and then comes..HEIght (not Hight):happysingh: THATS the reason why Guru ji USED the Gurmukhi Alphabet...

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1947-2014 (Archived)

THakur..is the THatthha ( letter after Tainka) Line 4 of alphabet..as in PiTH..(Back)

THree..is the Thathha..letter after the "t: Line 5 of alphabet...as in PaTHar (stone)

SO ENGLISH alphabet really is NOT Helpful in PUNJABI at all...after all ENGLISH cant even take care of its OWN...as we know..."Know" is NOh...and Knife is Nife...Bough is not same as Rough...Tough..Cough !!....and hundreds of similar words..so what chance of it saying/writing Punjabi wright..ha ha RIGHT !!tight..sight..fight..and then comes..HEIght (not Hight):happysingh: THATS the reason why Guru ji USED the Gurmukhi Alphabet...

Click to expand...

That is why transliterations are a pain in the neck. Especially in search engines and on YouTube. English phonetics are a mess for sure! Thanks for indicated where the sounds ae fronted and backed in the mouth, because that is the reason for the "slight" difference in sounding it out.

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SPNer

The pronunciation of "th" can be a problem. So it is pronounced like the "th" in the word "thought" only a little more softly - maybe even more like "t" with a lisp. Press your tongue behind your 2 front teeth when you say "th" :yes:

First of all, my compliments for this commendable effort. Secondly, it deserves more praise in the light of the fact that the compilation comes from a centenarian. It's but natural, as only a person of her age has the first-hand knowledge and authority to pass on to younger generation different Punjabi relations. As in our times we see they have well nigh been replaced by generic terms like uncle, aunt etc.

But I would like to make an important point here about an apparent mistake in their Punjabi spellings, and therefore the likelihood of their wrong pronunciation. In texting, too, I frequently notice this wrong trend. People write 'Paji' (meaning a rogue, naughty or mischievous child, and which we frequently come across in expressions like 'chall hatt naalaayak, paji', meaning 'Oh, you get off you little rogue') when they actually want to write 'Bhaji', which is perhaps the most versatile Punjabi word that is used for a number of Punjabi relations ranging from 'jijja (sister's husband)', bhrra (brother) to any unknown male on the street who's older than you, but who is not old enough to be called an 'uncle'

Pateeja (nephew), Pateeji (niece), Paan ji (niece) or Paan ja (nephew) etc. should be all spelled starting with 'Bh' instead of with 'P' as the word for sister 'Bhein' has been (correctly) spelled above, that is, should be spelled Bhateeja (nephew), Bhateeji (niece), Bhaan ji (niece) or Bhaan ja (nephew). Because if we misspell them, we can’t but mispronounce them.

But all this is just in the nature of a suggestion. I come from Patiala (Punjab) with ancestral links to Ludhiana. In this area of Punjab I hear these words pronounced the way I tried to point out in this comment. But I have no claim that the spellings/pronunciations suggested here are the only correct or acceptable versions for these words. If there are regional variations in the pronunciation of these affectionate and endearing relation words, they are good too.

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